“You adore each other with a great passion,” he said. “She is my Madonna, and you are my friend and benefactor. I will be your protection and defence. I will never let her go away with that infamous, gambling and murdering scoundrel. My gigantic combinations have matured. I bless your union.”
He lifted his little arms in benediction. The situation was cruelly comical. For a moment I hated the mournful-visaged, posturing monkey, and had a wild desire to throw him out of the window and have done with him. I rose and, towering over him, was about to lecture him severely on his impertinent interference, when the sight of his scared face made me turn away with a laugh. What would be the use of reproaching him? He would only sit down on the floor and weep. So I paced the room, while he followed me with his eyes like an uncertain spaniel.
“Look here, Professor,” said I at last. “Now that you've found Captain Vauvenarde, brought Madame Brandt and him together, and told me that she is in love with me, don't you think you've done enough? Don't you think your cats need your attention? Something terrible may be happening to them. I dreamed last night,” I added with desperate mendacity, “that they were turned into woolly lambs.”
“Monsieur,” said the dwarf loftily, “my duty is here. And I care not whether my cats are turned into the angels of Paradise.”
I groaned. “You are wasting a great deal of money over this affair,” I urged.
“What is money to my gigantic combinations?”
“Tell me,” I cried with considerable impatience. “What are your confounded combinations?”
He began to tremble violently. “I would rather die,” said he, “than betray my secret.”
“It's all some silly nonsense about that wretched horse!” I exclaimed.
He covered his ears with his hands. “Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Don't utter it!”